NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



?.n 



tains it, and thus, in a measure, pieserves the tu- 

 ber. 



Three years ago we plowed an acre and a half 

 of upland sward ground — subsoiled so as to make 

 the whole depth 14 inches, then sowed one pound 

 of saltpetre to each square rod, and over the whole 

 one ton of plaster. Hoed them twice and pulled 

 the weeds afterwards. The acie and a half yielded 

 two hundred and twenty-five bushels of good-sized 

 and finely-flavored potatoes. Potatoes planted and 

 manured in the hill within ten rods of this field, 

 rotted almost entirely, while in the crop with the 

 plaster and saltpetre not a bushel was found rotten. 

 Whether a similar result would follow in other 

 years we do not know — but we have no doubt that 

 manuring in the hill always has a tendency to in- 

 duce tlie rot. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 MAKING COB/IFOST. 



BY FREDERICK HOLBROOK. 



The soils of New England are at best but of 

 moderate fertility. Too much of our land has been 

 worn out, has been thoroughly skinned, by a long 

 and exhausting tillage. To increase the fertility of 

 lands not yet worn out, to restore fertility where it 

 has been exhausted, and to gather crops that will 

 remunerate labor, we must be diligent and perse- 

 veiing in the making and application of manure. — 

 Our case is such that we cannot rely simply upon 

 the refuse of our crops and the excrements of oui 

 farm-stock; we must add thereto the riches of oar 

 swamps and forests, the washings from our fields 

 that have centered in hollows, and all those waste 

 or unemployed vegetable or animal substances, 

 wherever available, that contain the principle of 

 fertility Thus we may cause now desert-places 

 to blossom again, and make the cultivation of New 

 England soil a remunerating business. 



Experience has taught me that compost-manure 

 is valuable very much in proportion to the care 

 with which the various materials have been min- 

 gled. One man will take certain materials, all 

 s'jitable for being converted into a rich compost, 

 tumble them together without caie or calculation, 

 apply the mass to his fields with as little care or 

 thought, and finding its operation upon his crops 

 very variable and uncertain, or that it is quite inop- 

 erative, will denounce the whole system of com- 

 posting manures as an idle theoretical notion, un- 

 worthy the attention of a 'practical farmer. Anoth- 

 er man will take precisely the same materials, min- 

 gle them minutely and perfectly, and in due pro- 

 portions, apply the compost properly to his fields, 

 obtain fine crops wherever it is applied, his lands 

 will steadily improve under such treatment, he will 

 add barn to barn, and will fill his barns. 



In the business of making manure, I for one have 

 found it for my interest to be always awake and 

 ready for improvements — to learn whatever others 

 can teach me, and lo discover new and effective 

 methods myself. I have various ways of making 

 good compost, according to circumstances and the 

 season of the year. It would be a long story to 

 speak of them all; but I have one method in partic- 

 ular, not very generally practiced, yet which I like 

 much, and it shall be my present purpose to de- 

 scribe it. 



Tlie floor of my stables is just long enougli Im- 

 the cattle to stand or lie down upon comfortably, 

 and no more. Five feet and three or four inches, 

 from the mangers or standards to which the cattle 

 are tied, back, is a suitable length of door for cows, 

 or for young cattle generally; for larger animals, 

 the floor should be proportionately longer. Imme- 

 diately back of this floor, I have a water-tight planl; 

 trench, four inches deep and twenty inches wide. 

 Between the trench and the side or boarding of ilie 

 barn, iheie is a walk or passage-way, two feet in 

 width. Tiiis trench is the place of all places i'cr 

 manufactuiing compost-manure. Some winters, 

 muck is put into the trench, and others, leaves and 

 vegetable mould collected in the woods. Last win- 

 ter, muck was used. It was dug in August previ- 

 ous, and piled on dry ground near the swamp to 

 drain and lighten; a part of the heap was carted to 

 the barn as soon as the cattle were to be stabled in 

 the fall, and the remainder was hauled by the first 

 sledding, and piled near the stable door under n 

 shed open on the south side. In the coldest weath- 

 er of winter, the frost penetrated the pile pretty 

 deeply; but the muck was easily cut up with a 

 sharp pick-axe, and it thawed very soon after being 

 deposited in the trench. I could readily have put 

 the muck in a place mostly free from frost; but pie- 

 ferred to have it frozen; for that operated mechan- 

 ically to break down the lumps, to divide, pulver- 

 ise and improve it. A bushel basket full was put 

 beiiind each animal, every morning. The solid 

 and liquid manure-droppings of the day and night 

 fell into the trench, upon the muck, the liquid drop- 

 pings completely saturated it, and the contents of 

 the trencli, thus mingled, were thrown out in the 

 morning. In the very coldest days of winter, a thin 

 sprinkling of straw or other litter was placed over 

 the bottom of the trench, before putting in the 

 muck, which prevented the latter from freezing to 

 the trench. There were but few days, however, 

 cold enough to make this precaution necessary. — 

 The cattle always had a bedding of straw or other 

 coarse litter, which was daily thrown out with the 

 contents of the trench, and served to swell the ma- 

 nu-re-heap, to keep it up light, and to promote fer- 

 mentation. The compost was minutely and nicely 

 mingled every day by this mode, and no shovelling 

 over was afterwards necessary. The solid and 

 liquid droppings, falling upon the muck fresh and 

 warm from the animals, and coming in contact with 

 every portion of it, produced an immediate and 

 powerful action upon it, so that a much larcer 

 quantity of muck was well prepared for use ni the 

 spring, than could have been properly ptepand 

 with the same stock and by ordinary modes of com- 

 posting. 



I have two men now at work in the woods, gath- 

 ering up the leaves and vegetable mould accumuli- 

 ted in the little hollows, which material is to be 

 passed through the trench in the stable during the 

 approaching "foddering season." They havestout 

 heavy hoes, made expressly for this business, with 

 which they grub up the leaves and mould that in 

 these hollows have formed a bed from two to six or 

 eight inches deep. In the afternoon, with dung- 

 forks and wheelbarrows, they collect into one heap 

 what has been loosened up with the hoes in the 

 fore jiart of the day, locating the pile in a conven- 

 ient place for making it a large one, and near some 

 slcd-road through the woods, so that it may be ac- 

 cessible at any time in the winter. The men havt 



